Snapshots taken by American soldiers of Iraqi prisoners stripped naked, humiliated and tortured shocked the world in 2004 and more have followed from the conflict in Afghanistan, but whether the public have been horrified by the soldiers' conduct or the fact they have taken pictures has not been clear. In fact, as this remarkable book reveals and relates, soldiers have taken photographs of war and its atrocities for more than 100 years. But their pictures are private, intended mainly for the soldiers themselves, as mementoes or as attempts to make sense of the chaos, brutality and boredom of war. They can be gruesome or sociable, shocking or mundane and they are seldom regarded as seriou...